In tragic times, you often hear about the “need” for sports—as a distraction, a diversion, or a communal gathering. This is almost always overstated, and it is frequently reductive to the point of being insensitive. Boston might have “needed” the diversion of David Ortiz saying, “this is our f---ing city” and then leading the Red Sox to a World Series win a few months after the Boston Marathon bombing, but the parade did not bring back the dead.
We do not need sports now, in the wake of the domestic-terrorism incident at the Capitol.